


The kids wouldn't get it

by ratfromasewer



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Affairs, Attempt at Humor, Awkward Flirting, Brendon being brendon and by that I mean fabulous, Elementary School, Gen, M/M, Multi, School, Teachers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-17 10:25:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3525764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratfromasewer/pseuds/ratfromasewer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank's almost qualified history teacher in an elementary school. Gerard is the unnecessarily attractive school nurse. And that's about it</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. God bless Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> I think that typos are like my signature or something at this point. Comments will always make me happy and more motivated.

Bad news: I was wearing just one sock and my hair looked exactly what it was – like I had just woken up and didn’t have time to do anything about it. I was in a serious danger of pouring some boiling hot coffee on myself. I had never been this late from class in my entire life. 

That was, if the High School didn’t count. But that was different; in High School you could just try and hide somewhere in the back of the classroom and mumble some made up excuses to your teacher and receive few possibly pitying, possibly mean (depending on the smartass-level of the fellow students) glances. Being late in High School was not a big deal, not really. 

However, being late when you were an actual, qualified Elementary school teacher who actually got paid for (how surprising it might’ve been considering the known state of our shitty education system) actually teaching stuff and not-being-late, was already a bigger issue. You would’ve thought that man of my age would’ve learned how to handle his schedules and show up in time where he was needed, but I guess I was not that functional. I wonder if I was ever going to be. Long story short: I had binged few seasons of The Walking Dead last night, which had eventually led up to forgetting to set up my alarm for this morning. You could’ve probably guessed the rest.

Just for the record, The Walking Dead was really not that good, so this was all for nothing basically. Fuck my life. 

I pushed the class door open with my knee, trying to remain balanced and hopefully not injuring myself or anyone else, carrying my coffee and all of the books and piles of essays I should’ve given back like weeks ago. Simply “sorry” was the first thing leaving my mouth when I entered the room, blushing furiously and still attempting to keep the last pieces of my dignity while placing my stuff on the table. Okay, I could handle this, I had been trained for days like this. 

I remembered the day when I was accepted to this job and the headmaster’s kind advice: “Frank. You are young and full of hope and right now you feel like teaching is your one true calling and the meaning of your existence, but trust me, there will be days when you feel like putting a bullet through every stupid student’s and possibly also your own head. Don’t look that terrified, I’m half-joking. Anyway, when those days eventually come, just remember: coffee wasn’t invented without a reason.”

I took a sip of my Starbucks cup before turning to face my students.

“Hi kids” I cleared my throat, “Sorry I’m late.” 

It was a pretty sunny today and all the dust that had been piling up on the furniture showed very clearly. That reminded me to inform the cleaning staff of this lack of hygiene. I had always been allergic to pretty much everything and trying to teach something when you were constantly sneezing was not that enjoyable, let me tell you that much.

“Hi, Mr. Iero.” The class answered, some of the kids giggling and glaring at me knowingly, probably trying to let me know the reason they assumed I was late because.  
“Actually, I should’ve said good morning, right?” I corrected myself, mentally beating myself up for my struggle to concentrate, “good morning, kids. Or… whatever. Don’t answer, it’s not necessary.”

The giggles got louder.

“Yeah… so…” I tried to remember the subject helplessly, “so… uhm.”

My mind was blank.

I sighed.

 

“This is terrible, really.” I gave up pretending I was not exhausted as I actually was. “Mind if I finish my coffee before we start the class? Okay. Great. You may use your phones or whatever you kids wanna do while Mr. Iero here tries to become an actual human being.”

The approving sounds they made were somehow satisfying. I made a mental note to never become a dad; I would’ve been the worst with discipline. I would’ve raised like the craziest, most horribly behaving children of all time.

I sat behind my desk, going through my papers with another hand while gratefully consuming the liquid of life with another. God bless Starbucks. Also bless the angel of a Starbucks employee who had made my coffee very quickly. I had probably scared her off with my wild eyes and the desperate prayer: “Coffee! As soon as possible!” I had most likely looked like a very caffeine-addicted criminal in the middle of a bank robbery.

“Mr.Iero?” One girl, (I was almost positive her name began with the letter “S”) put her hand up and looked at me almost like she was feeling sorry for me.

“Yeah… you?” I didn’t take the risk of fucking up her name although my students must’ve got used to that already. I swear to god, they like, switched names with each other every month or something. 

“We were supposed to study Native Americans today.” She said kindly, getting a couple of angry “shh”s from her friends around her as a response. I gave her a relieved smile and finished my coffee with one giant gulp that burned my mouth and caused me a lot of pain which I casually tried to cover up with an even brighter smile. It must’ve looked terrifying.

“Yeah, that’s right, Susan –“

“Sally.” She smirked.

“…Sally. You’re absolutely right. Native Americans and their interesting culture and history, yes. I bet you’re all excited. Take out your history books, please.”

I got up and felt new energy running through my veins. I could definitely do this after all. 

My this day’s collection of ten-year-olds didn’t seem to be as fascinated in morning history class as they could’ve been, but at least most of them put down their phones and opened their books, settling in their usual, bored positions.

“Native Americans. Okay then. First of all, I’m gonna point out that a lot of the stuff it says on your book is bullsh… I mean, rubbish.”

I got few accepting laughs and I felt better, muttering under my breath: “don’t tell your parents” before going on. 

“So. native Americans, or as some might say; Indians, were here a long before any regular English or other European dude even knew that this country existed. By the way, does anyone know why some uncultured stupid-heads still use the word Indian?”

So it went on. Like usual. And luckily, it went good and also ended, which was simply just a blessing. It meant I had like fifteen minutes to get my shit together before the next class would start. Fifteen minutes to get another cup of coffee and possibly exchange some bitter but somehow consoling words with my beloved co-workers.

I crashed into the teacher’s room with a serious attempt to find someone I could have an actual tolerable conversation with and a dream of finding coffee that wouldn’t taste like ass. Both of these hopes were high considering the people I worked with.

Fine… to be fair, some of them were actually very nice.

Like Patrick Stump, for example. He was currently fixing his guitar on the sofa in the back of the room, ignoring everything around him successfully as usual.

“Hi, Pat.” I stood and watched him fix one of the strings, “How’s it going?”  
“Look at this mess” he didn’t bother to answer my question and stared at his instrument full of desperation, “this is what you get when you let some asshole 8 year old touch your guitar. Never again.”

“Why didn’t you just stick with the fipple flutes? Much less risky.” I suggested sympathetically. He gave me his death glare, which was not that terrifying, since he was… well… Patrick. The only way he could ever harm me was to choke me with his wasted musical talent.

“That’s not…” He shook his head and fiddled the side of his classy fedora, “Those things are not… It’s not music, man. It’s not /art/.”

“Yeah, and they’re not musicians nor artists.” Brendon’s cocky voice pointed out from behind me. I turned and faced the slightly tanned face and Pepsodent-worthy smile. 

“We’ve been through this before.” Patrick stood up for himself, “Some of them might have potential. I wanna give them an opportunity, that’s all.”

“Whatever man. So far it looks like the only opportunity you’ve given them is breaking your stuff.”  
“Shut it, Urie.”  
“I’d rather not, Stump.”

I left the guys arguing about the proper ways to handle these kind of problems and ran into our school nurse on my way to the coffee machine. Can’t say that wasn’t a surprise – he rarely hang out in our staff room. I guess he felt like an outsider since he was not really a teacher – his part was to send the kids back to us with their limbs full of colorful sticking plasters after they had fallen on their asses while playing outside. I gave the guy a hesitant smile; I had always found him seriously attractive but I had never even bothered to ask his name. 

“Morning” I said out of impulse and he looked confused for a moment, looking around him like he was trying to be absolutely positive I had talked to him. 

“Morning” he then replied and gave me one of the most adorable grins I had had the privilege to witness in ages.

He didn’t look like an elementary school nurse to me, to be honest. If I would’ve been absolutely necessary to guess, I would’ve said he was a writer or an actor, or possibly some kind of theatre person. He was like a bright color stain in our staff, which’s appearance could’ve been described as “fifty shades of grey”… literally. 

Patrick had his hats, I had my tattoos (most of them were covered with my clothes though) and Brendon had his ridiculously neon-colored sneakers, but that was about it. I guess it was part of the teacher image to dress boringly. 

Yeah but this guy. He wasn’t boring. He wore leather jackets, band t-shirts, funny bow ties, and very, very tight skinny jeans that made his butt look illegally good and almost too easy to stare at. He didn’t have any tattoos which was a bit disappointing (unless there was some under his clothes) but anyhow he was on top of the list of the good-looking people I had laid my eyes on in this life. And trust me, there was plenty of those good looking people, I could assure you.

“Just trying to get some coffee” I explained in an attempt to small talk a bit, find out something about him. I don’t know, just to satisfy my curiosity or something.

“Same. It would be the cup number six today.” He rubbed his forehead, “I’m fricking tired.”

“Isn’t that kinda unhealthy?” I made a note, reaching for a cup from the upper shelf and failing miserably. He smiled at my short-people- problem and picked up the cup, offering it to me politely.

“Thanks” I mumbled embarrassed. 

“If I’m honest, yeah, it is. It is hella unhealthy.” He answered me like nothing had happened, “and I definitely shouldn’t act like this, not to mention how I haven’t eaten all day and I’m seriously addicted to nicotine and currently trying to get rid of the habit –“he pulled up his sleeve a bit so I could see his nicotine patch, “… but I guess I’m a living example of ‘do as I say, not as I do.’” 

“How many of our students are addicted to nicotine?” I grinned and poured some coffee for myself, still looking at his pretty face probably creepily intensive.

“Not too many, you’re right” he laughed, “But anyway. I’m not much of a role model. Sometimes I seriously wonder how the hell I ended up in his job.”

“I can relate to that” I admitted willingly and took a gulp from the coffee that wasn’t as terrible as it could’ve been (probably made by Patrick, then) “I used to be a rebel. In School, I mean. Fought the patriarchy and thought my teachers were brainwashed lambs. I was a real punk.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” He smirked almost sadly. 

“You bet. Although I’m hoping to be a better teacher than any of mine were.” I glanced at my wristwatch and gave myself a permission to keep talking at least few more minutes, then I’d have to go and pretend to care about kids’ educations.

“I know the feeling. You know, my old school nurse was a terrifying old woman who told everyone to lose weight and exercise, no matter what the kid’s injure was. I personally think that ‘don’t worry and eat that chocolate bar, you know you want to’ is a better way of thinking.”

“Letting the middle school nurses to deal with the obesity issues?” I asked, hoping that I wasn’t crossing any line. He seemed like a guy with a sense of humor.

“Definitely. I don’t care. My job is to keep the kids sane and somewhat healthy.” he fixed his bowtie and gave me a look that could’ve been almost flirtatious. 

“Funny. My job is to make them insane” I answered and brushed off the feeling like it was nothing. I was not going to get into something inappropriate… oh well, not at least if there were witnesses around. I could almost feel Patrick’s burning stare in my back. He was always so suspicious, like would go and try to hit on everyone in whoever entered this building. 

(I kept telling him one time didn’t count. It was totally not a big deal if I had had an affair with one teacher one year ago. It didn’t matter. It was not like a /habit/ or anything.)

“You’re not doing your job then, it’s been quiet around my room” He shrugged and looked through his pockets, found some aspirin and took it with the coffee, “I get kind of claustrophobic there. It’s not like there’s lot to do if the kids don’t hurt themselves.”

“That sounded suspiciously mean.”

“I know it did” he tilted his head and ran his hand through his black hair which was irresistibly attractive, “but I guess the only way to handle this job is to keep it real.” 

“True.” I agreed from the bottom of my heart and raised my cup slightly, “Keeping it real. and coffee.”

“Yes. coffee.” He took a sip and after a short moment of hesitation, offered me his hand. “Gerard” he introduced himself and I shook his hand, getting myself caught from thinking how weirdly soft his hands were for a dude. 

“Frank. Iero.” 

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Iero.” I pronounced it for him as clearly as I could, “I know, it’s fucking ridiculous, but it’s totally worth it. I mean, imagine how fun it is to teach the kids to say it correctly?”  
“Must be a thrill.” 

“The best part of my damn job. Anyway, I probably must be going then. It was nice talking to you, Gerard the nicotine addicted school nurse in a Bowie t-shirt.”

“Right back at you, Frank Iero, the… what subject do you teach, by the way?”

“History. I swear I’m not as boring as all the other history teachers, though.”

“Okay. bye, Frank, the history teacher with a pair of very short legs and the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Was there really a proper way to response to that?

Bad news: I was still wearing only one sock and my hair was still unbearably messy and I was still exhausted and also getting hungry.  
Good news: I had just flirted with the hottest school nurse of history, so it wasn’t all that bad. 

As I left the teacher’s room, I heard how Patrick threatened to hit Brendon with his guitar if he wouldn’t shut up. I smiled to myself.


	2. Got distracted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a liar, I admit it. I promised you this was gonna be ready a lot earlier than it was. I'm sorry, but I've been so unmotivated and stuff lately, that it's... idk... I don't handle it. I fucking hate writer's block.
> 
> But so, yeah, here it finally is. The other chapter. I hope I didn't disappoint you. Leave a comment if it's not the worst you've read. 
> 
> (Typos! Typos everywhere!)

“This is seriously the worst by far” Patrick didn’t even bother to try and do anything about the state of things, he just stared completely emotionlessly at his guitar. I could’ve sworn he blinked unnaturally often like he was actually about to cry. I was trying very hard not to be the asshole who laughed first. Pat’s facial expressions were making it very difficult, not to mention the way Brendon seemed to be having a seizure next to me, shaking from a silent hysterical laughter. 

“It’s not that bad.” I did my best to be even a bit supportive.

“Not that bad? /Not that bad/? Seriously, Frank??”

“Man, don’t freak out, it’s just…” 

“Yeah ‘just’ a skull and f…damn, flames, drawn on my expensive guitar with a permanent marker. I swear to god…”

“Think positive” Brendon finally caught enough breath to speak even though his voice was shaky, “it could be a dick.”

“What could be a dick?” Gerard’s voice came from behind us. He was trying to peek over Brendon’s shoulder and have a look at what we were glaring at like a bunch of morons. I immediately turned on my heels and gave him a sweet smile, which he noticed and seemed to get a bit reddish around his ears. He nodded at me and shrugged innocently. I was counting on Patrick being too busy with his worries to give a fuck about my so called love life. 

“Look.” Patrick pointed at his precious (wooden) best friend: “Fricking look at it. This is horrible.”

“Oh no” Gerard finally got to see what the fuss was about, “And it’s not even a good drawing.” He was standing right behind me and I stopped to wonder if he had decided to stand there intentionally. Probably yes. He was the one who had started this in the first place. Like, I wasn’t the one to blame for any possible somewhat illegal or controversial affairs in the future months. I hadn’t started this (well, of course I might’ve not turned him down too eagerly, quite the opposite, but it was definitely his fault we were in this situation. Definitely.)

“You know who did it, anyway?” Brendon collected his stuff from the table and stuffed it in his backpack. He was obviously about to leave – he always jogged home, that unbearable rabbit. I would’ve had a heart attack with his ridiculously healthy life style (if you count out the parties) but on the other hand I got to admit he looked damn good. Too bad he had never been too into me. He would have made a nice one night stand. 

What? It’s not like I didn’t have a life even though I was a teacher. I had a life. I was into one night stands and dates, and video games and coffee, and sex, and sometimes I got drunk and listened to Elton John. There was always dog hair all over my clothes no matter what, I actually enjoyed watching nature documents and I fucking hated spider webs, and spiders, of course. I was a real person, I had smoked pot, I had been in hospital, I had even been arrested once – I was not as boring as my one-way and bland career made me sound like, and I was definitely more than just some teacher who happened to have a mild obsession with foreign cultures.

All this I had to keep out from the classroom, obviously – I would’ve been fired in a matter of seconds if I would’ve talked about real life with the kids. I was paid to assume they were dumb. Although, I did my best to break the rules whenever possible; I had taught the kids a lot of a bit ‘controversial’ stuff along the years. I tried my best to assure myself I was breaking the system from the inside. In the best days I almost believed it, too.

Gerard was right, the skull was not a good drawing. 

“Yeah, I know who did it” Patrick turned his back at the guitar like it physically hurt him to lay his eyes on it, “It was the Wentz kid, whatever his first name is.”

“Bronx?” We all three said in sync and glanced at each other knowingly. Yeah, Bronx Wentz. We know /that/ kid.

“He faked a broken bone once when he didn’t want to do gymnastics” Brendon informed us in a voice that suggested he was not that mad but actually quite impressed by the little boy’s creativity, “I even believed him at first. And fucking trust me with this one: I’m not easy to fool, I’ve seen every possible excuse in the existence. You know it’s like part of PE teacher’s training to learn to spot the liars.” 

“Bronx’s always late” I added, thinking about the blonde kid’s huge blue eyes that gave him a false innocent angel face, “And when I say always, I mean like… always. But he’s not stupid or anything. I mean, he’s lazy and disrespectful as hell and this one time he called me a grandpa to my face. But he’s not stupid.”

“He’s not that bad, he’s just…” Gerard looked for a proper word in a warm, hesitant tone, “…challenging.” 

“Tell me more.” I raised my eyebrows. “What do you got?” 

Gerard only laughed it off and shook his head. “I have to keep it as a secret. It’d be so unprofessional to tell.”

“Oh, come on!” I encouraged childishly.

“Drop it, /grandpa/.” He winked almost too quickly to notice, and I smirked my “trouble smirk” (the one that apparently scared people because they could never know what I was about to do next. Needless to say I kind of liked that smirk.)

The thing Gerard and I had been keeping on couple of weeks now was somehow very frustrating and satisfying at the same time. And by this I mean that it was practically nothing, but it was more than I had gotten in a long time. And there was no rush to do anything, really – it was just this casual flirting and talking and being couple minutes late from class because I couldn’t stop telling him a story about my crazy uncle, or hanging out after work even though we both had homes to go to, or standing a bit close or laughing a bit too loud, and it didn’t matter because it was totally cool and if someone would’ve asked something, I would’ve said that _nothing_ was going on. 

It was not like anything I had ever had before. I had never been a guy who waits for anything. I walked along a straight line of “I wan’t that – I’ll try to get it” or the other one “that’s lame – I’ll avoid it”. There were no “buts” or “maybes" in my life, because I erased them quite quickly. I knew what my next move was and I knew what was going to happen because I watched my life almost as it was a movie that I had already seen (but like a long time ago, so I could almost or barely remember the plot.)  
Until now.

Because, honestly, I had no idea what was going on, not to mention what was going to happen, and it was terrifying and insanely pleasant all at once. Yeah, I might’ve been head over heels with this guy, but I didn’t want to rush it, which was unlikely for me. Usually by now I would’ve hit on him with all of my skills and gotten him into my bed in no time. That had happened many times with many people, and I didn’t complain, but I guess I was kind of bored of it. This was new for me and therefor it was exciting and fucking hell, no one that knew me would’ve guessed that someday Frank Iero would admit that he liked to wait. But yeah, that was the case. I was waiting for him to make the next move, whatever it was gonna be, and I was fine with it.

I surprised myself sometimes.

Patrick looked over at us with doubt-filled eyes but he didn’t say anything, but I knew very well what he was thinking; he thought that my little someone-might-call-it-affair that had happened a while ago with this substitute teacher Jamia was a proof that I was gonna sleep with every single good-looking person in this building. Scratch that – every single good-looking person who was attracted to guys. Short guys. Short guys with coffee breath and dog hair all over their clothes. 

Ok so I had totally had a little crush on Brendon when I first came into this house, but what was the big deal? I mean, he was /Brendon./ He was the kind of guy you had a crush on for two days until you realized he was… not the kind of guy to have a crush on. (oh yes, and way too straight for me, thanks.) Not to mention how he used to have a habit of walking around the teacher’s room shirtless and making it very hard to concentrate on any work. He enjoyed it. Fucking asshole. 

“So anyway” Patrick cleared his throat, “I’ve called the kid’s parent, his dad’s supposed to show up any minute now and I’m scared the he’s a douche and I’ll end up breaking his face with my already ruined guitar.” He sighed.

“Parents are the worst.” Brendon agreed sympathetically which was uncommon from him. I wasn’t surprised though. The horror folks with big wallets and bigger egos and the idea they were better than us were enough to make any teacher humble. Especially when the law clearly said that we couldn’t do anything about the way they treated or raised their kids. Our job was to fix what parents had already spoiled. It was not that joyful. 

Ok, I was being unfair. There were nice parents too, good parents, loving parents. But then there were the ones no one mentioned without being mildly disgusted. I wondered what Bronx Wentz’s parents were like. Judging by the name, not too conservative at least.

“Good luck with that.” Gerard said genuinely and Pat smiled, stressed out and small drops of sweat on his forehead. Poor guy. He had definitely chosen a wrong job. He was far too delicate to be around evil ten year olds with spoiling mothers and mean big brothers who gave them complexes and made them even more evil. 

“Thanks man. I mean, little bit of moral support wouldn’t hurt…”

“Aw hell naw. I want nothing to do with it, you’re dealing with that bullshit on your own!” Brendon pulled his pants a little higher and grabbed his backpack. “Sorry, but swim practice doesn’t wait.”

“Are you serious?” I scorned, “Swim practice? Jesus… I bet you’re doing it only to wear your super-tight speedos and flirt with all the half-naked chicks who are too blinded by your six pack to notice you’re a prick.” 

“Maybe.” Brendon shrugged, “Maybe not, who knows? Maybe you’re just jealous because I look smoking hot in speedos.”

“Please don’t tell me that you actually have speedos.” My voice was mortified.

“Oh, you’d like to know, would you, little pervert?” 

“Jesus Christ, no. I’d rather dig my eyes out with a rusty fork dipped in hot olive oil than ever see you in those gross, gross things, thank you very much.”

“Guys” Patrick waved his hand, “You got distracted.”

“Yeah” Gerard said with an odd voice and suddenly I felt his hand brush the side of my own, “you got distracted.” Was I imagining or did he just step hell of a lot closer than it would’ve been appropriate? And then it happened. For a second, his hand was resting on the belt of my jeans and pulling me closer so lightly it was almost impossible to notice, and then the second was over and I was taken by surprise so totally I forgot to breathe.

I looked over my shoulder and he smiled, and his face was very close and it was in fact, more distracting that any argument with Brendon could ever be. About the stupid speedos or not.

“Guys.” Patrick whined.

“Yeah, I’ll just go now before these two sexually harass each other on the table or something” Brendon announced and put his snapback backwards before leaving. My neck was so warm I was probably as red as Gerard’s shirt. He didn’t seem to be bothered by Brendon’s comment, lucky him. Actually he looked like he hadn’t even heard Brendon. He was too fixated on… well, me. And my ass, probably. My ass, which was not where normal people’s asses were, because I had inherited my dad’s box-like body shape. In conclusion, I didn’t have an ass. Except that Gerard apparently thought that I did, because he was still standing very close to me and I could almost feel his stare. Don’t know what he was staring at, but I’m glad it made him happy. I grinned to myself, almost forgetting Patrick was still in the same room.

“Bye.” Gerard said to Brendon and I nodded, and Patrick mumbled something that could’ve been “see you later” but I couldn’t be sure.

“Adios, losers.” Brendon left.

“So, will you be my backup?” Patrick gave us the puppy eyes and only now I noticed he had lost few pounds lately. He looked skinnier and somehow sadder. I made a mental note to take him to a diner somewhere sometime soon and stuff him full of pancakes. I was a good friend. Sometimes.  
“Okay, sure, why not.” I sighed pretending to be hesitant, “I guess I don’t have anything better to do.” I kind of didn’t. Maybe I was just pleased that I got an excuse to be with Gerard a little longer.

“Am I allowed to stay too?” Gerard asked casually and I coughed to hide a smile.

“Yeah. Yeah, thanks dudes.” Patrick seemed truly relieved, “I don’t like parents. Like, at all. They always end up convincing me that everything their kid has done wrong is somehow my fault and then I have to apologize. It’s horrible.”

“Don’t worry, Pat.” I patted his shoulder, “we’ll stand up for ya.”

“Or course we will.” Gerard echoed.

“Excuse me, is this the teacher’s room? Hello?” Came a voice from the door, soon followed by a pissed off “You stay where you are, young man, while I talk to the teacher. You hear me?”

Bronx said something from the hallway but it was too quiet to hear. Patrick took a deep breath and turned to greet the guy, his hand offered for a stiff handshake that was gonna be awkward. Gerard and I shared a ‘this is gonna be interesting’ look.

First of all, Bronx’s dad was nothing I had been expecting, and all I had to say was “damn.” The guy was attractive. And not in a punkish feminine badass-style attractive like Gerard was, but, I don’t know, laid back and spontaneous kind of way. He wore big sunglasses, black t-shirt, shorts, and he was nicely tanned (or possibly brown-skinned, I couldn’t tell). His hair was blonde, probably dyed, and he had this bright smile that radiated coolness. I caught myself from staring and although he was definitely not my type, I knew exactly whose type he was; this one very nice guy who owned a lot of hats and lot of guitars and was buried so deep in his closet he could see Narnia. 

Yes, I was talking about Patrick.

“Hi man, how are you?” the Wentz guy shook Patrick’s hand and grinned, looking kind of nervous, “I’m sorry I’m late, I had a meeting with my publisher and he’s a bitch and… never mind, you don’t probably care. Sorry anyway.”

“Uhm. Hi.” Patrick looked kind of scared, “Patrick. Stump. And… I didn’t… I mean, don’t worry about it.”

I tried to slap Patrick telepathically. Then I realized that it must’ve looked very odd how me and Gerard just stood there, so I grabbed his sleeve and dragged him further into the room, pretending we were actually working and not just eavesdropping on their meeting. Gerard almost giggled and it was adorable enough to make me giggle with him. This was so weird.

“Cool. Yeah. I’m Peter, Bronx’s dad. But you might as well call me Pete, everyone else does.”

“Oh, okay. It’s… nice to meet you.” Patrick managed. I was sure he was not gonna have the guts to call this guy Pete. I was right.

“So…mr. Wentz –“

“Oh, please, just say Pete, really. Mr. Wentz sounds so kinky.” He grinned and Patrick blushed outrageously “oh my god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to terrify you. I’m just kind of not used into formal meetings.”

“Ah… actually, I…” Patrick looked at anywhere else but the guy (I bet he found Pete’s dark brown eyes very distracting now that he had taken off his shades) “actually I wanted to talk about something that Bronx did today.”

“I kind of guessed that” Pete shook his head in a very depressed way, “okay, let me hear it.”

“Ok so” Patrick glanced at me almost like he was begging for help, “So, I’m a music teacher, you see, and I’m very fond of my instruments. But sometimes… sometimes I leave them off guard and today I did… and while I was gone for a couple of minutes, Bronx had drawn something on my guitar.”

“Oh good god.” Pete said it like it was an actual prayer, “let it not be a penis.”

“No” Patrick blushed even harder, “no, no, it’s not… it’s not a penis.”

“Well, that’s something” Pete shrugged, disappointed but not that surprised (anyone in his position would’ve probably not been). “At least he’s not entirely classless. Can I see?”

“What? Oh, yeah. Sure. Frank, would you –“

I picked up the guitar and took it to Patrick, nodding a small “hi” to this Pete dude while I did so. He seemed kinda nice and I could also sense some sort of gay or at least bi vibe from him. Questioning, maybe? Divorced? I glared at his hand. Yeah, no ring. Perfect. I was so pulling Pat out of his comfy closet in no time. 

“Shit.” Pete looked at the guitar and put a hand on his face, “Shit… I’m so sorry man, seriously. It’s… He’s… God, I don’t know /what/ to do with him.”  
“He’s smart.” Patrick blurted clumsily, “And he’s… He definitely has potential, he’s just… He doesn’t seem to care.”

“I wonder where he got that from” Pete smirked and rubbed the back of his neck, “Well, not really. I was always like that. Except that I wasn’t exactly talented, like he is.”

“uh –“ Patrick was planning on to be the most awkward teacher of the year. Gerard looked almost pitiful when he listened to the conversation. He was so kind. I loved it.

“He’s very into music, y’know? Always playing with my bass and stuff, he just… I don’t know, Patrick. I don’t know. He’s been acting so weird lately, I thought that this would come, like, later, when he’s fifteen or something –“

“I wouldn’t worry.” Patrick tried to sound consoling, “But he’s behavior’s kind of bad right now and there’s really not much I can do about it, so I wondered if you could talk about it at home…?”

“I’ve talked to him.” Pete sighed, “A lot. But he doesn’t seem to listen. Since his mom left, he’s been so damn distant…man, it’s kind of scary. He’s like constantly mad at me. I thought that only teenagers do that crap.”

“I wouldn’t worry.” Patrick repeated.

“Look at your guitar, though.” Pete sounded genuinely sad and apologetic, “I’m gonna pay for it, obviously, but it could’ve been like, important to you. I know how it’s like with instruments.” 

“Nah” Patrick said and I had to suffocate my laughter because the guitar had been Patrick’s number one lover and a friend for over five years, “nah, it’s not that big deal.”

“Lies.” Gerard whispered to me, his mouth dangerously close to my ear. I wonder what the concerned dad would’ve said if two teachers had started making out in the back of the room. Well, technically speaking Gerard was not a teacher.

“I wanna make this up.” Pete muttered, “I wanna… I don’t know. I’m seriously so sorry about this, I am. I feel like it’s my fault.”

“Don’t!” Patrick sounded almost panicky, “It’s not your fault, it’s Bronx’s. Oh well, mine, since I left my guitar with twenty active children and permanent markers. I can’t blame anyone else but myself, honestly…”

Gerard had to seriously press his hands on his mouth so he wouldn’t have laughed. I pretended I was going through some files and buried my face into the papers. 

“No, don’t blame yourself –“

“I mean, you shouldn’t blame yourself –“

It went like that for a while. Then Pete let out an amused laughter and Patrick joined him nervously. I was planning on my move.

“I’ll talk to Bronx, I swear.” Pete put his hand on his heart, “But if there’s anything else I can do to make it up…”

“Dinner!” I put before Patrick had the time to open his mouth, “I suggest dinner. You’ll take Pat out to a very nice restaurant and – “

“FRANK!” Came two voices: one of them absolutely terrified, one of them dying of amusement and disbelief. Gerard smacked my arm and giggled, out loud this time.

“Uh –“ Patrick’s cheeks were as bright as mine had been couple of minutes later, but Pete played it cooler. He took his sunglasses, tilted his head and smiled.

“I could do that.” He said with a completely normal voice and put the glasses on, playing it as cool as I had thought he would, “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Uh –“ 

“Give him his number so I can talk him into calling to you.” I advised calmly and smiled. Pete nodded and took a piece of paper and a pen out of his pocket, wrote his name and number on it and gave it to Patrick, unsure if Pat would take the note or not. He did, and glared at me with a mixture of rage and gratefulness, (what a weird combination).

“I’ll still pay for the guitar.” Pete assured.

“I think we better get out before Pat strangles you” Gerard suggested with a low voice, and yanked my arm, and at that point I was totally good to go anywhere Gerard wanted to take me, it didn’t matter. It was a warm day and were able to leave without too much asked questions, abandoning the two lovebirds in the teacher’s room. We saw Bronx who was giving the most hopeless expression in the hallway, and I told him not to worry about it too much. 

“Well, that was interesting.” Gerard laughed when were out, squinting his eyes because of the sun and looking through his jacket pockets. It was warm and it smelled like spring. I walked way too close to him, not caring, not knowing where we were even going.

“It was.” I agreed.

“You know, I’ve worked in few schools and this one is very different in one way.” He said, finding a cigarette and placing it between his lips but not lighting it. 

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“This is the gayest.”

“So that means you fit in here, right?”

“Ha ha.”

“It was not a joke.”

“I know.” 

“Why did you laugh then?”

“’cause you said it.”

“What’s funny with that?”

“Nothing…” he teased.

“Tell me!”

“Oh well, it’s just that you’ve been wanting to kiss me for like, three weeks now.”

He still hadn’t lit up his cigarette and he didn’t even look at me when he said it. It was almost like he had said the weather was great. We kept walking although we had no destination whatsoever. We just walked. It was nice. He was nice. And he looked too good.

“Oh, so school nurses read minds now?”

“Yeah, we do. It’s our secret.” He put his finger on his lips and grinned.

“You’re not very good at keeping secrets, then.”

“I’m not. Wanna hear another one?”

“Sure.”

“I would kiss you back.”

I stopped and he did too, facing me and looking at me with this face that was nearly stubborn: Do it! Can you? Do you have the guts? Come on!

“You said you were getting rid of smoking.” I said and took the cigarette from his mouth, “It’s not good for your health.” 

And then I kissed him. I don’t know how would want me to describe it. It was… it was a kiss between two people who have wanted to do that a while. It was a kiss that was planned, and still it took me by surprise. It was innocent, it was warm, it was nice, and it probably wasn’t healthy either but at least I would not give him lung cancer.

“I’m a terrible school nurse.” He smiled against my mouth.

“I don’t care.” I took his hand, “At least you’re a good kisser.” 

Bad news: Actually, there were non that I could think of right now.

Good news: I was making out with the most attractive person I had ever met in my life, and also he was hella rad in other ways too. I thanked myself for sleeping too much and having a lose moral. This was pretty great.

**Author's Note:**

> okay I'm a terrible worthless human being and I am so so sorry for not updating my few longer fics in centuries, I swear that I'll work on them sooner or later but I've just felt so uninspired to write them lately that it's almost shameful. Yes, I'm ashamed. (as if anyone even cares but just pointing this out)


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